"Yeah. That's why I fought the Marquess. Her rules were mean."

"I don't know if we can fight magic rules." "If there's not a person."

"Dunno either."

Sigh.

"In Fairyland I'd be pretty sure there'd be some kind of quest you can do to make things better, but that feels like a world rule, too."

She nods and curls up in the chair, bringing her knees to her chest; this slows her typing considerably.

"That's not how my world is."

"Yeah. It wasn't how my Earth was, either."

She nods again and stays curled up; tucks her phone away after a minute.

"You okay?"

Shrug.

And then she starts crying. Quietly, and holding as still as she can, but she's not really trying to hide it.

....Oh no.

"Do you want a hug?!?!?!"

She nods and scoots over to make room in the chair.

She climbs up and hugs her friend.

She leans in, and the crying slows after a few minutes, though she doesn't seem any happier. She does take the phone out again, though. "I wanted to be done with that." "Bad rules." "Food rules."

"I'm sorry I made you sad. I'll find out any rules, though, okay?"

"Okay." "I guess it's better to know fast." "Let's go."

"Yeah. Let's."

And so they set off. She doesn't think to put wikipedia back on right away; when she does think of it, she fumbles the phone, dropping it, and hisses softly in annoyance. It seems to be fine, though, and she sets it playing again.

September doesn't make her talk, and does listen to wikipedia, and keeps an eye out for anything too weird or threatening.

Eventually they get close enough to the people for September to find her own way.

She finds them a card catalog with slips of paper and little pencils, and draws a little map on her phone for the other girl to copy. "I'll stay here but I can find you somewhere else if you need me to." "Don't try to bring any grownups back."

She copies it, with some apparent artistic skill.

"Okay. Thanks for all the help."

She nods and curls up in a chair again.

And September goes to find the other humans.

She's very quickly able to find out the known rules and observations, at least.

-Food is free, or at least only at the price of listening. They've never heard of anyone leaving but they don't think eating here is what changes that.

-The library shifts when you're not looking. It behaves more the higher you go. No one knows if there's a top or a bottom or any sides.

-If you go deep, the library stops behaving. Odd people live down there, and some people think there are monsters.

-The library is helpful, at least high up. You'll find the books you need, is the most common thing. The library tries to help people not get lost, and it tries to make sure everyone has bedding and food they like and safety.

-There's debate about whether the library is intelligent, or if it's people subconsciously doing magic to the library, that makes it be helpful.

-People are from different worlds. Some of them have magic other than what the library does for everyone.

-Conflicts between groups of people around here are usually solved by the shelf-witch, who lives on her own and also works as a provider of medicines - reading medicines out of a book is tricky, and you need someone who knows what to do with them.

-They think only people can wander into the library, but some of those people aren't human-shaped. One person swears he saw an orangutan, another a tall, willowy alien with terribly bright eyes. Still, people from similar worlds seem to cluster together - it's mostly humans from Earths, around here.

-Some groups hold enough territory to really have a concept of 'law', but they usually try to signpost the territory they're maintaining. The library is only sometimes helpful about this.

-You need an audience to read items out of a book. Reading to yourself doesn't work. If you listen to a passage for the same stuff a lot, its magic wears thin - food gets bland, medicine less effective, and eventually things stop appearing for you. That's just audience, though, not orator - some people make their living traveling and reading the same stuff to different people.

September gets food and provisions and a little book of provision poems that's gotten all worn out to their ears, but it'll be new to her, and starts making her way back to Rescue.

She's still curled up in the same chair, but looking considerably more relaxed, watching something on her phone. She doesn't look up until September gets very close, and then taps at her phone a couple times: "That all sounds good." "What do you want to do?"

"I kind of want to explore more? And learn stuff. The depths sound neat but I should probably get used to this place before trying to go down there..."